The Sondrestrom Incoherent Scatter Radar utilizes techniques which allow the direct measurement of ionospheric electron number density, ion velocity, and electron and ion temperatures along the radar beam. Because the radar antenna is fully steerable, these parameters can be determined as functions of distance and altitude. The radar consists of an L-band transmitter, a 32-m steerable parabolic dish antenna, low noise amplifier, receivers, and digital signal processing computers. More details are contained in the Parameters of the Sondrestrom Incoherent-Scatter Radar System Table.
Radar experiments are scheduled each month, averaging about 100 hours of operations. Requests for radar time must be submitted by the 10th of the previous month and the monthly schedule is issued on the 20th. The operations schedules are available for viewing. The Sondrestrom radar operations catalogues, listing all data recorded since January 1990, are also available for viewing. Radar data are archived at SRI, Menlo Park, and are available to qualified users by request. Examples of radar data can be viewed by clicking on data samples . Examples of displays generated by the Sondrestrom Radar Visualization Tool are also available.
Since the radar began operating in Greenland, more than 200 journal publications using the radar have been published by scientists worldwide.